Harry Potter gets mixed reviews as media rush to beat the bloggers

THERE is a war in the world of film reviewing as leading trade magazines broke the traditional film industry embargo on publishing reviews early, and jumped the gun with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The critics of Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter put their appraisals of the fifth Harry Potter movie on the web last Monday. This is well in advance of the July 8 date the studios demanded reviews wouldn’t appear until.

And the verdict? Well, mixed is the fairest way to describe it.

Variety said the film is “considerably grimmer” than the first four instalments. It is “grittier than the previous pictures in the phenomenally successful series”, it said.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt had a more unfavourable take on the film. “While ‘Phoenix’ is a necessary film, it’s quite possibly the least enjoyable of the lot so far,” Honeycutt wrote. He said the film included a “bewildering array of personages”.

The Time online, which also published its review early, said “it is a film where the balance of narrative tips from action to intrigue and there are some that will find that tedious”.

The Times went on to say the film “struggles unsuccessfully to give us thrills and fun”. On the whole, the Times reviewer felt the film “leaves us faintly annoyed that the true denouement of the cycle is now two movies distant”.

With bloggers now posting reviews online straight after film premieres, the Hollywood studios have found it impossible to control reviews leaking early. And with the competition from online writers, the traditional print media have been forced to go to press earlier and earlier with their critics’ words of wisdom.

The film opens in the US on July 11, and in Britain and Ireland on July 12.